Originally Posted by nolonger
I go to AA meetings, and mostly I let the specifically religious stuff wash over me. I don't have a God, nor do I buy into a lot of the "there are no coincidences" stuff, nor the "cosmic force that orders the universe" either. But there are smart people, in meetings and elsewhere, who have experienced something worthwhile from their religious belief, and it's intriguing for me to try to make that meaningful for me, someone who doesn't have any particular belief in transcendance.
Greetings NL,
I find your ability in itself to be intriguing. See, once I began to embrace philosophy (logic and reason) over its polar opposite, religion (faith; by definition
blind faith, in fact) I could no longer sit there and listen to these people talk on and on and on about "working" this or that Step and hear "God" or "Higher Power" in every other sentence.
It was weird, and I freely confess that: You see, I am describing a slow midlife transformation (people on philosophy forums have said to me, "congratulations on your
enlightment" - LOL! - hey, I don't know about all
that, now) from Baptist upbringing to weak agnosticism.
If you look to Wikipedia and type in "agnostic" you'll get a fantastic cross-referenced education on the full definitions of "atheism" and "agnosticism," of which there are "strong" agnostics and "weak" agnostics.
A weak agnostic says he simply doesn't know; a strong agnostic believes you
cannot know if there is or isn't a God - and there's your difference. Interesting, huh?
And it just gets 'interestinger' and 'interestinger' the more you delve into the many branches of philosophy. Some diehard lovers of philosophy (most of whom are extremely well-read, btw.) insist on spelling it with a capital "P":
Philosophy, so strong is their passion for the field. And it is stunningly large, too.
Well, cheers - just wanted to say, interesting post, NL. Got quite side-tracked.
Sigh. Me and my love of writing, i guess
-TCD-